The brewery is 'the' place to work in Colorado, Gov. Hickenlooper says.

Jun. 9, 2013

New Belgium Brewing Co. employee Emily Dufficy, center, points out bicycles to her tour group Thursday as she talks about the bikes given to employees who have been with the company for a year. / Dawn Madura/The Coloradoan

Bryan King hi-fives participants as they roll past him on Saturday, Sept. 1, 2012, during the Tour de Fat in Fort Collins. About 20,000 people rode in the annual New Belgium event.

More

ADVERTISEMENT

From its 1991 launch in a Fort Collins’ homebrewer’s basement, New Belgium Brewing Co. has grown to have an oversized impact on the city it calls home.

Employing 475 people across the country, the brewery and its staff serve as de facto ambassadors for Fort Collins, proudly demonstrating their success in pairing profitability with sustainability, with a whole bunch of fun mixed in.

The company donates millions to causes it supports, particularly those bicycle-related, and the brewery last year drew 100,000 visitors to its tasting room and free tours. A new commercial airing in U.S. 12 cities offers the rest of America a glimpse into the company’s quirky culture that both feeds and reflects Fort Collins.

“I hope it’s a mutual love affair. We feel very lucky to be here. Fort Collins has been very good to us,” said CEO Kim Jordan, New Belgium co-founder. “I still regularly have ‘pinch me’ moments.”

New Belgium’s influence on many strings of Fort Collins life belies its actual size, especially compared with employers such as Colorado State University, which has more than 6,100 employees, or University of Colorado Health (formerly Poudre Valley Health System), with about 4,400 employees here. The brewery has about 350 employees in Fort Collins, with an additional 125 spread around the country.

The brewery is something of a cultural touchstone for Fort Collins: The decisions New Belgium makes not only shape the beers we drink, but affect the kinds of bikes we ride, the racks we lock those bikes to and the trails we pedal along. They affect the city’s food-truck culture and even the kinds of research and classes offered at CSU. The company’s values have helped change state law, drive the use of solar panels and electric cars, and keep a sharp focus on sustainability.

Those guiding principles haven’t changed in recent years. What has changed, however, is the brewery’s willingness to talk about them loudly and repeatedly. Brewery tours hype sustainability while pushing visitors to use Facebook and Twitter to connect with the company. The annual Tour de Fat ride promotes bikes and fun. And Jordan herself pushes state leaders to help for-profit companies like hers make a bigger community impact.

(Page 2 of 5)

“I’m really proud of what we’ve done. Certainly we’ve made mistakes along the way, but we try to improve all the time,” Jordan said. “For a fairly long time, we didn’t talk much about what we did. The practice of the work has a splash, but it also has ripples. And if you talk about the ripples, maybe it helps somebody else think about doing something along the lines of the world we’d like to see.”

A different business model

New Belgium is now the country’s eighth-largest brewery and third-largest craft brewery. While bigger breweries are unmistakably corporate, New Belgium has deliberately maintained an attitude where having fun is listed in the same core values statement as making world-class beer, and promoting environmental stewardship and responsible drinking. The brewery’s first employee still works there, with the whimsical title of “director of fun.”

As the company’s tour guides like to say, Jordan and her former husband founded the company with a specific purpose statement: “To operate a profitable brewery which makes our love and talent manifest.”

The private, employee-owned company grossed about $180 million last year, with its owner-employees eligible for profit-sharing. As of early this year, the company is fully owned by its workers, with ownership coming after a year on the job. The first year on the job also brings each employee a free cruiser bike. After employees have been with the brewery for five years, they’re taken on a tour of Belgium with Jordan and other company leaders. After 10 years, they get a monthlong sabbatical and a tree planted in their honor.

Speaking to the Coloradoan just days before leading this year’s Belgium tour, Jordan said she shares responsibility for the company’s culture with everyone who works there. Jordan says her training as a social worker helps set the tone but acknowledges she worries about losing the soul of the company she co-founded as it grows: “I worry about it, and I ask other people to worry about it, too. If you want to have a soul, have a community, you have to work at it.”

(Page 3 of 5)

New Belgium has long “worked at it,” said Gov. John Hickenlooper, who got to know Jordan when he was running Wynkoop Brewing in Denver. When asked what makes New Belgium such a popular place to work in Fort Collins, Hickenlooper interrupted a reporter: “They’re the place to work in Colorado,” he said.

Hickenlooper says Fort Collins should be proud that New Belgium makes its home here. And he says the way Jordan runs the company she co-owns with the rest of the staff is a good model for other businesses. The company’s employees are sometimes criticized for their cult-like devotion to the brand, but Hickenlooper says that devotion serves both the bottom line and the city New Belgium calls home.

“They want to make every day better for everyone at work,” he says. “It’s a lot more than just looking at ‘how much money I can make?’ ”

What sets New Belgium apart, Hickenlooper and others say, is that people want to work there. Really, really want to work there.

For brewery tour guide and “Liquid Center” employee Emily Dufficy, New Belgium offers the opportunity to have fun, make people happy and serve the Fort Collins community. Dufficy was working as a paralegal assistant in a Denver law firm when the job she eventually got opened up. She’d always envisioned working for a nonprofit but found New Belgium was a perfect fit.

“I’m not just working here,” she said after giving a tour to about 20 people last week. “I’m an owner of the company.”

Being themselves

A big part of New Belgium’s ability to get headlines is the company’s willingness to let its quirky employees be themselves. After all, this is a brewery employing a bevy of self-described “carnies” who put on the 12-city Tour de Fat bike parade.

Last year’s Fort Collins tour alone drew more than 20,000 people for the costumed parade and bike-forward extravaganza. Those bike-pedaling, mustachioed carnies are featured front and center in the brewery’s new television commercial, its first in eight years. Money raised from the parade is donated to local bike centers.

(Page 4 of 5)

“We didn’t say, ‘You will have fun, we will make you.’ But we did say, before we made any beer, that having fun would be meaningful to us,” Jordan said. “We make beer for a living. If we can’t have fun, that means we have some real challenges as human beings.”

The company allows its employee-owners to inspect the books whenever they want, helping everyone understand what role they play in their own success, Jordan said. As a former social worker who attended a Quaker school, Jordan values consensus and discussion. One group of employees, called Compass, helps set the annual plan. Another group, known as Missionaries, builds the mid-range plan.

“We’re trying to sort of eliminate or streamline or concentrate our focus in a way that keeps people from wondering if they’re doing the right thing, wondering how their job fits into the overall picture,” Jordan said.

The overall picture New Belgium presents to the outside is of a fun, successful company that’s managed to turn its manufacturing plant into a tourist destination. More than 66,000 people have visited the brewery’s tasting room this year, and tickets to free brewery tours like the ones Dufficy gives are among the hottest in the city.

During a tour last week that was part brand evangelizing and part beer education, Dufficy explained the brewery’s commitment to sustainability, community and fun, all the while giving out free samples of exclusive brewery-only beers and explaining how beer is made, aged and bottled.

Fort Collins resident Bruce Wolff was on his second New Belgium tour in as many days. Friends who visited him on Tuesday wanted to tour the brewery, as did a second group who arrived Wednesday. Wolff said friends who visit always want to tour the brewery, and he’s only too happy to oblige.

“It’s a shining light,” he said. “It represents Fort Collins. It really reflects well on Fort Collins. It’s great for the city.”

Wolff’s friend, John Humason, was visiting from the St. Louis area. Humason says he was astounded at how well-run New Belgium appears to be, and how well the tour given by Dufficy showcases the brewery’s commercial and community success.

(Page 5 of 5)

“Their impact is remarkable,” said Humason, a first-time visitor to Fort Collins. “They (say) ‘Do what you want to do, and be successful at it.’ ”

David May, executive director of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce, says New Belgium’s employees and the entire brand have become de facto ambassadors for the city. May points out that Fort Collins is home to plenty of other successful private businesses, from Woodward to Wolf Robotics and Avago Technologies. May says those companies are profitable and good employers but just don’t get the same kind of attention from the public as OtterBox and New Belgium.

“... Economically, the company is important to Fort Collins. Beyond that, they are a happening, a cause. Sustainability is a core value, and it drives their hiring and management practices and is core to their conventional and viral marketing,” he said.

“They have become informal ambassadors of Fort Collins, and their brands augment the community brand. In the case of New Belgium, it’s a youthful, smart, outdoorsy, funky, environmental persona. They export both beer and ‘Colorado cool.’ That’s not all Fort Collins is about, but it’s pretty good.”